


only happy when it rains

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Kissing, POV Alternating, Romance, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-21 23:22:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7409257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They seem to keep kissing. For strictly undercover reasons, that is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	only happy when it rains

**i.**

He feels a bit bad for not having shaved, even though Daisy is the one kissing him, the one who started it, he feels bad for scratching her skin with his stubble right now.

Even though he had no idea she was going to do that.

The softness of her mouth contrasts with how hard she looks - not just hard from what she has lived, the things she’s lost (Coulson feels the pang of guilt more than responsibility, because he’s learned he’s not responsible for her), but the way she looks. The sharp dark brown eyeliner, the cropped hair. No wig this time. She doesn’t look like any of the Quakes that have passed before, like any of the photographs on his wall.

She said she needed to talk.

Then pushed a flash drive into his palm, telling him that the ATCU was in danger - why does she care, that’s not clear to Coulson - and she needed to warn him.

Even though it was a risk.

Then she kissed him.

She breaks it now, pulling away in a heartbeat, more suddenly than she started it, turning her head so that her nose briefly bumps against Coulson’s cheek.

“I thought maybe those two were… eh, nevermind.”

He follows her gaze to a couple of men in dark suits. Understandable. They look slightly suspicious. And she’s been on the run for seven months.

That’s when Coulson realizes it was an undercover kiss, not a real one, and that’s what prompts him to wonder if Daisy kisses any differently, when it’s not undercover. Would he able to tell them apart?

“I really am getting paranoid,” she says, with a tiny tilt of the head, some humor. She manages some humor and all of Coulson’s fears - that she might be too lost, too broken, and she is on her own because she didn’t want anyone to see her like this - disappear with some shame. Of course. This is Daisy. She survives. She doesn’t lose her soul or her light. Or her humor. Seven months is a long time, even for heartbreak. Even for a heart as large as hers.

He takes half a step back, looking stiff, looking at Daisy’s lips. But she is holding the umbrella so when he backs away water starts falling on his head.

Now the head tilt intensifies, as Daisy catches him.

“Can’t be the first time this happens to you, all those years of spy master…”

Coulson makes a noncommittal noise, blinking the rain off his eyes. He doesn’t want to admit that indeed this is the first time it happens to him. Even though this kind of move is pretty usual, textbook even, right under instructions for undercover dancing and how to fake you’re drunk. But he’s never had the opportunity to put this specific lesson in practice.

He’s come here thinking of all the ways he can try to convince her to give herself up, because the longer she is on the wrong side of the government the worse it’ll be when they catch up with her. He has in his pocket special handcuffs he knows won’t work on Daisy

He didn’t know he should have prepared for a kiss.

“You look better,” she says, lifting her hand a bit like she is about to wrap her fingers around his arm. But she doesn’t.

“Better than what?” Coulson asks.

She steps back, leaving Coulson’s frame completely under the rain, she’s ready to leave him again, once the mission is complete. 

“You’ve been looking at me,” she says, with a bit of a smirk. “And I’ve been looking at you.”

Then, as if thinking it better, she gets closer again - for a moment Coulson thinks she’s going to kiss him again - and pushes the umbrella into his hand.

She turns around and leaves, disappearing behind all the civilians and their umbrellas, before Coulson can tell her that’s unfair.

 

**ii.**

Is this payback for last time? Daisy wonders.

She admits she panicked back there, when she did what she did because she thought they had been spotted (kissing someone when she panics is not exactly new for her), but not out of fear for herself. She’s still careful, but it’s been a while since she’s dropped the fear of being caught. It was only an obstacle for what she had to do anyway.

But Coulson getting caught, that was different.

It was strange, after so many months, feeling The Fear again.

Feeling her actions immediately affect another person.

She kisses back now, anyway, whatever Coulson’s reason, whatever her reasons. Trying to look convincing.

Coulson knows what he’s doing; undercover-wise or kissing-wise, she’s not sure, it’s a good kiss, or a good undercover kiss, or- okay, stop that.

“Sorry, the security guards, I thought that maybe…”

He is apologizing but he is smiling a bit, so maybe this is payback.

She thinks about how smooth his skin feels now, unlike the stubble he sported for months. She normally likes the stubble on guys, but she didn’t like the idea of Coulson not taking care of himself because of her.

“No, no, good thinking,” Daisy assures him, feeling a bit of heat in her cheeks - not sure if from the kiss (wow, is it really been that long?) or the following awkwardness.

Coulson’s smile hasn’t quite disappeared.

It annoys her a bit.

Payback, uh?

She’s nothing but competitive.

She moves closer to him and slips her hand inside the pocket of his pants. Coulson immediately stiffens - well, _bad choice_ of words, Daisy thinks, she means he immediately becomes tense. The smile is not longer there. Now Daisy is the one smirking.

She fishes inside his clothes, taking longer than she really needs.

“Door key,” she says, producing the little plastic card, gripped between two fingers.

“Ah,” Coulson says, recovering _almost_ completely.

She holds out the security ID in front of him. They are not working together, not really. They just happened to go after the same objective. She’s still a fugitive. This is just a temporary truce.

She half turns towards the service door.

“Come on, let’s do this before my dress gets ruined,” she says, wiping droplets of rain from her bare shoulders, noticing how Coulson’s gaze seems to follow her gesture.

 

**iii.**

He has been shot enough times, but never at the vest. He remembers training for it at the Academy, but that was like a million years ago, or a billion years ago, and he doesn’t remember it hurting so much.

“I think it might have cracked a rib,” he explains, hissing.

It’s fine, he’s not going to die in a dirty and cold alleyway. It just… hurts a lot.

Daisy is looking over her shoulder, while kneeling in front of Coulson, listening for the sounds of law enforcement approaching, distracted from that by her worry for him.

“You have to leave,” Coulson tells her, making the choice for her. Or rather encouraging the choice he knows it’s the right one.

She widens her eyes at him. “What are you talking about? You’re hurt, I’m not going to leave you here like this.”

She sounds bothered that he would even think...

“I’m okay,” he says. “I’ll be fine.”

Now she narrows her eyes at him.

“You are the one who’s always insisting I should give myself up to the ATCU,” she says, grabbing him by the vest, tightly, as if she is angry the vest wasn’t able to protect Coulson well enough.

He shakes his head. “Not today. If Talbot catches you today we’d be too busy arguing what to do with you and we’ll never catch the culprits. And they have to be caught. _You can_. Only you can.”

“I hate that.”

“What?”

Daisy looks at him with hard eyes.

“When you say we and it’s not… _us_.”

Coulson smiles.

“I hate it too.”

She moves her hand from his chest to his shoulder, pressing her fingers lightly against his arm. She looks up at the sky and then down at Coulson again.

“This only happens when it rains,” she says.

He hadn’t noticed, but it has started drizzling lightly in the meantime. He watches a single drop fall right over Daisy’s left eyebrow, but he doesn’t quite get the meaning of her words.

“What only happens when it rains?” he asks.

She drops her head and kisses him.

He realizes something about himself.

Because it’s different to the previous undercover kisses but it’s really, really not. And Coulson _realizes_.

“Daisy…” he calls, as she pulls back.

But she doesn’t reply.

She stands up, turning her face to give him a sad smile and a little nod of determination - _only you can catch the bad guys_ he thinks again - before walking away.

 

**iv.**

The journalists take a cursory look at the backstreet, obviously put off by the two people making out under the fire escape.

“Come on, let’s try the next street,” the newscaster says.

The camerawoman huffs along. “ _QuakeWatch_? The show’s beginning to seem more like _QuakeFail_?”

It’s not until their steps have faded into the surrounding crowd that Coulson extricates himself from Daisy’s arms, looking over her shoulder to see if they were alone and safe.

He sighs. The kissing was a bit awkward - not just because it was really stressful, escaping from the news teams gathered after Quake’s latest heroics, but also because Coulson admits to having been thinking about kissing Daisy a lot since they started working together again. Or rather since he started working _for her_.

Daisy smirks at him like she knows something - she doesn’t, she _can’t_.

“I guess it was your turn again,” she says, cryptically.

“What?”

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” she tells him. Unlike the last two times this has happened Daisy is now free and very willing to get back to the base and continue this. And that’s what she plans to do, if Coulson lets her.

“Good plan, but…” he mutters. He had managed to pull away from the kiss to look if their pursuers have left, but Daisy still has her arms around her. Her embrace is warm, especially because the day is not.

“Sorry,” she says, not moving yet.

“That’s fine. It was.. tactical?”

Is he asking? Oh god this is so awkward, she thinks, not letting go of Coulson because that might be even more awkward. she lifts her hand to his face.

“Hey, you need a shave,” she comments, drawing her thumb across his jaw, wiping drops of rain as she touches him.

“Don’t you like the stubble?” he asks, his tone explicitly flirty now; Daisy guesses they have probably both come to the conclusion that kiss wasn’t _just_ to mislead the journalists in search of a prized QuakePeek. It wasn’t tactical at all.

“Yes, but not on you,” she says.

Coulson frowns at her. What doesn’t she mean _not on you_? He’s about to ask but then he watches Daisy’s eyes go softer than he’s seen in months, and her right hand twists into the back of Coulson’s jacket. She brings her mouth close to his and draws a small breath before kissing him. It’s barely a touch, gentle. It turns out there’s still a difference between Daisy’s undercover kisses and her real ones. Coulson closes his eyes, he never imagined he’d be able to tell them apart.

“You’re shaking,” Daisy comments.

For someone who vibrates stuff for a living she finds this development awe-inspiring.

“Mmm,” he mutters, distracted. “It’s cold.”

She looks around, tightening her grip on Coulson’s waist.

“Do you want me to make you fly?” she asks.

It sounds like a line out of a dream. But it’s Daisy, so that makes sense to him.

“Is that… literally or figuratively?”

Daisy arches one eyebrow.

“What about both?”

Coulson nods as she slides her arm under his shoulders and he grabs onto her tightly.


End file.
